Friday, December 1, 2017

"BE VIGILANT AT ALL TIMES."


Homily for December 2nd, 2017: Luke 21:34-36.

          On this last day of the year in the Church’s calendar she gives us this short gospel reading from Luke’s gospel, just two verses. It contains Jesus’ command: “Be vigilant at all times … [and] pray constantly.”  What wonderful advice to take with us, as we cross the threshold of a new year. 

          But is it realistic? Can we pray constantly? I asked that question myself almost 70 years ago, as a 21-year-old seminarian. The question forced itself on me through the reading a spiritual classic: The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence. He was a Carmelite lay brother who worked in the kitchen of his monastery in Paris, where he died in 1691. The book tells on how Brother Lawrence was constantly thinking of God, and praying to him, as he worked all day in the kitchen.

Could I do that? I asked myself. What if I decided to think of God during some daily recurring activity? After several false starts I resolved to think of God every time I went up or downstairs. I resolved to turn to the Lord God whenever I went up or downstairs. I would repeat the holy name of Jesus at each step. I’ve been working on this now for 68 years. I could never tell you how much it has helped me and how much joy it has put into my heart.

Why not try doing something like that yourself? If prayer of the stairs doesn’t appeal to you, what about resolving to turn to God whenever, during the day, you must wait? Every day offers us many such times. We wait in line at the post office or bank, at the supermarket, at the doctor, in traffic – when we walk to or from our cars. Why not turn these empty times into times for prayer? Short prayers are best: “Jesus, help me;” “Thank you, Lord;” “Lord, have mercy.” Or simply the Holy Names, “Jesus, Mary, Joseph” – or the name of Jesus alone – repeated with every step, every breath, or every heartbeat. These are perfect prayers which take us straight into presence of Him who loves us more than we can ever imagine, and who is close to us always, even when we stray far from Him.

I leave you with two quotations from Brother Lawrence: “In order to know God we must often think of him; and when we come to love him, we shall then think of him often, for our heart will be where our treasure is.”

To which Brother Lawrence adds: “You need not cry very loud. God is closer to us than we think.”

 

Thursday, November 30, 2017

"MY WORDS WILL NOT PASS AWAY."


Homily for December 1st, 2017: Luke 21:29-33.

          On the next to last day of the year in the Church’s calendar, she gives us Jesus’ words: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” Remembering the boy Samuel’s words in the Jerusalem Temple, “Speak Lord, for your servant is listening” (1 Sam. 3:10), let’s listen to some of Jesus’ words.

-  To Mary and Joseph, thankful to have found their Son in the Temple after a frantic search, the 12-year-old boy speaks his first recorded words: “Did you not know that I had to be in my Father’s house?” (Lk. 2:49) Already, at age 12, Jesus knows that his Father is God, and not Joseph.

-  What gospel reader does not recall Jesus’ words to Nicodemus: “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him may not die, but may have eternal life”? (Jn. 3:16)

-  Which of us has not found comfort in the words: “Come to me, all you who are weary and find life burdensome, and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon your shoulders and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart. Your souls will find rest, for my yoke is easy and my burden light” (Mt. 11:28ff)?

-  Unforgettable too are Jesus’ words of the terrified young girl just delivered from death by stoning for adultery: “Nor do I condemn you. You may go. But from now on avoid this sin.” (Jn. 8:11)

-  Jesus’ seven last words from the cross have provided inspiration for uncounted thousands of preachers on Good Friday. AFather, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing.@ (Lk 23:34) To the penitent thief, crucified next to him: AToday you shall be with me in paradise (Lk 23:43). AWoman, there is your son …son, there is your mother.@ (Jn. 26: 19f). AMy God, my God, why have you forsaken me?@ ( Mk. 15:34) AI thirst.@ (Jn. 19:28) “It is finished.” (Jn. 19:30)

-  Finally Jesus’ words to Mary Magdalene in he garden of the resurrection: “Do not cling to me … Rather, go to my brothers …) Jn. 20:17.

          Jesus is saying the same to us, right now. 

Wednesday, November 29, 2017

“BE WATCHFUL! BE ALERT!”


Homily for the First Sunday in Advent, Year B, 2017. Mark 13:33-37

AIM: To help the hearers understand the riches of the Mass.

 

          “Be watchful!” Jesus tells us in the gospel. “Be alert!” That is the message of Advent, a word which means “coming.” In Advent we are alert and watchful for three comings of the Lord: his first coming at Bethlehem, in weakness (as every baby is weak) and in obscurity: the only people who showed up to celebrate were some shepherds, and three crackpot astrologers from God knows where. Advent also reminds us to be watchful and alert for Christ’s final coming at the end of time, in an event so powerful that everyone will know that history’s last hour has struck. And between these there is a third, intermediate coming, here and now.

Like his first coming at Bethlehem, it is hidden and obscure. Yet like Christ’s final coming, this intermediate coming is a thing of power. It is what Jesus had in mind when he told us: “Anyone who loves me will be true to my word, and my Father will love him; we will come to him and make our dwelling with him” (Jn. 14:23).

          Let me start with the question –

Why do we worship?

          We do not celebrate the liturgy for personal inspiration or uplift; to give us or others a nice warm feeling inside or “a meaningful worship experience,” to use modern jargon. Those things may happen, or they may not. None of them, however, is the purpose of our worship. St. Thomas Aquinas places worship under the heading of justice. It is something we owe to God, who has given us everything we have and are – our sins excepted: they are all our own. The Preface to each of the Eucharistic Prayers expresses this truth when it says: “It is truly right and just, our duty and our salvation, always and everywhere to give you thanks, Lord, holy Father, almighty and eternal God.”

          Sometimes people complain that they don’t “get anything” out of Mass. The proper answer to that is: “So what?” We’re not here to get. We’re here to give – to give thanks, to praise and adore. The liturgy turns us away from self, toward God. And only when God is at the center of our lives can we have any chance at true happiness and fulfillment. St. Augustine tells us why when he says – and he was speaking from his own experience: “You have made us for yourself, O God, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.” Or, to put it in terms which young people today understand best: We are hard-wired for God.

          Note how we begin Mass: “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” I can never say those words without being inwardly moved. They remind us that we gather in the name of a God whose inner law is self-giving love: the Father pours out his love for the Son; the Son returns this love to the Father; and the love that binds them together is the Holy Spirit. As we begin Mass we are drawn into this love, into God.

          But which of us is worthy to stand before the all-holy God? That is why we immediately confess our sins. “Lord, have mercy,” we pray. We appeal to God because we can never rid ourselves of sin on our own. Only God can do that. After that comes every Sunday, except in Advent and Lent, the Gloria, the great hymn of praise to God. This is followed by the opening prayer of the Mass, called the Collect, because it collects the petitions of each of us, and offers them to God.

          Then we sit down to listen to the word of God, messages from a world very different from this one, our true homeland. When we come to the gospel we stand, acknowledging that now Jesus himself is speaking to us: calling us back to him when we have strayed, filling our mouths with laughter and our tongues with joy (to quote the psalmist), when the sunshine of God’s love shines upon us. In the Creed which follows we profess our Christian and Catholic faith. The Petitions which follow remind us that ours is not a private, me-and-God religion. We are members of a family, taught by Jesus in the one prayer he gave us to say not “My Father, but “Our Father.”

          We move on then to the Offertory. But what can we offer God? He needs nothing. He is, as the theologians say, “sufficient unto himself.” The fourth weekday Preface to the Eucharistic Prayer says: “You have no need of our praise, yet our thanksgiving is itself your gift, since our praises add nothing to your greatness, but profit us for salvation.” Thanksgiving profits us for salvation, because the act of giving thanks involves an acknowledgement that we are God’s creatures, dependent on him at every moment for our continued existence. And whatever we give to God, without any thought of return is not lost. It comes back to us, transformed.

          The transformation of our gifts takes place in the Eucharistic prayer or Consecration. It begins with the Sanctus or Holy, Holy, in which we pray that “our voices may join with theirs” – with the angels whom Isaiah at his call heard singing “Holy” three times over, because God, though one, is three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The priest then prays for the descent of the Holy Spirit on the bread and wine we have offered. He recites the narrative of the Last Supper, using Jesus’ own words. And the bread and wine are transformed, invisibly but truly, into the body and blood of our crucified and risen Lord. Jesus himself is truly present. Present also is the sacrifice he offered at the Last Supper and consummated on Calvary. This means that spiritually we are truly there: in the Upper Room with Jesus and his apostles, and with Mary and the beloved disciple at the cross, with but one exception: we cannot see him with our bodily eyes, but we do see him with the eyes of faith – and seeing, we adore.

          Following the Communion, the Mass closes with the blessing; and then perhaps the most important word of all, apart from Jesus’ words over the bread and wine: the little word, Go.

Go forth, the Mass is ended.

Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord.

Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life.

Go in peace.

So much beauty, so much drama, so much holiness, so much joy! Do we ever stop to realize it, and truly worship?

          Let me close with a personal testimony. I have wanted to be a priest since I was twelve years old. I’ve never wanted anything else. What drew me to priesthood above all was the Mass. Every time I served Mass, from age twelve onward, I thought: One day I’ll stand there. I’ll wear those vestments. I’ll say those words. On the 4th of April next year it was be 65 years since that boyhood dream was fulfilled. It was wonderful then. It is, if possible, even more wonderful today.

          When I climb the steps to the altar, I think often of God’s words to Moses at the burning bush: “Take off your shoes from your feet; for the place where you stand is holy ground.” In India, which I have visited twice, the priest does that literally. Before every Mass I celebrated in India, I removed my shoes.

I’m not ashamed to tell you, friends, that many times, as I bow to kiss the altar at the start of Mass, there are tears in my eyes, and a catch in my throat as I think: This is what I have wanted to do since I was twelve years old. If you ever notice me breaking off in the middle of a sentence, unable to go on, that’s the reason.

When I look around, I see men in their thirties and beyond who still don’t know what to do with the one life that God has given each of us. And I have the privilege of doing what I’ve always wanted to do – something of which no man is worthy – not the holiest priest you know, not the bishop, not even the Pope; a privilege extended to us not because we’re good enough, but because God loves us; and because he wants to use us to serve and to feed you, his holy people, from these twin tables of word and sacrament.

          Do you understand now why I tell you again, as I have told you so many times before, that I say every day, more times than I could ever tell you: “Lord, you’re so good to me. And I’m so grateful.”

Friends, if I were to die tonight, I would die a happy man.

"THEY LEFT THEIR NETS."


Homily for November 30th, 2017: Matthew 4:18-22.

          Peter and his bother made their living from fishing. Yet at Jesus’ call they immediately leave their nets and boat and follow him. They were burning their bridges behind them. Why? If we could have asked them, I think they might have said something like this: “You would have to have known this man Jesus. There was something about him that made it impossible to say No.”

The Lord called me 77 years ago, by placing in my heart the desire to be a priest. From age twelve I’ve never wanted anything else. Next April I will have been a priest for 64 years. Have all those years been happy? Of course not. That doesn’t happen in any life. If you ask me, however: ‘Have you ever regretted your decision for priesthood,’ I would answer at once, and without a moment’s hesitation: Never, not one single day. 

          Is God’s call just for religious professionals, priests and nuns? Don’t you believe it! He calls each one of us, as he called those four rough fishermen in today’s gospel. He calls us to walk with him, to be so full of his love that others will see the joy on our faces and want what we have. Christianity, it has been said, cannot be taught. It must be caught.

          “I could never do that,” you’re thinking? You’re wrong. Here is a list someone sent me recently of some of the great people in the Bible. Every one of them had a reason for thinking God could not use them. So the next time you think that God can’t use you, remember: 

Noah was a drunk. Abraham was too old. Isaac was a daydreamer. Jacob was a liar.   Joseph was abused by his brothers. Moses had a speech impediment. Sampson had long hair and was a womanizer. Rahab was a prostitute. Jeremiah and Timothy thought they were too young. David had an affair with a married woman and had her husband killed. Elijah was suicidal. Isaiah thought himself unworthy. Jonah ran away from God’s call. Job went bankrupt. Martha was a perpetual worrier. The Samaritan woman at the well was five times divorced. Zacchaeus was too small. Peter denied Christ. The disciples fell asleep while praying. At Jesus’ arrest, they all forsook him and fled. Paul was a religious fanatic. Timothy had an ulcer. And Lazarus was dead! So what’s your excuse? Whatever it may be, God can still use you. Besides, you aren’t the message. You’re only the messenger.

          When you were born, you started to cry, and everyone around you was smiling. Start today (if you haven’t started already) living your life so that when you die, you’re smiling, and everyone around you is crying.

Tuesday, November 28, 2017

GOD IS NOT MOCKED


Homily for November 29th, 2017: Daniel 5:1-6,13-14,16-17, 23-28.

          It was quite a party. The Babylonian King Belshazzar knew how to do these things right. He brought in all the women from his harem, to be admired by his guests. There were singers and dancers. The wine flowed like water. When everyone in the hall had drunk deeply, he ordered the silver and gold vessels which his father, King Nebuchadnezzar, had plundered from the Jewish Temple at Jerusalem to be brought in, so that they could drink from them to all their pagan gods.

          Then it happened: a scene out of a Hollywood blockbuster. High up on the wall, brightly illuminated by a nearby lamp, a hand started to write three mysterious words on the wall: MENE, TEKEL, and PERES. Suddenly the great hall was silent, the king and all his guests aghast. “Call Daniel,” the king ordered in a trembling voice. Daniel was the bright-eyed Jewish teenager who, we heard two days ago, refused to eat the food sent to him from the king’s table, because it was not kosher. “If you can tell me what those words mean,” the king told Daniel, “I’ll give you the highest honors in my kingdom,” Belshazzar said. “You can keep your gifts, sir, Daniel replied. “I’ll tell you what the words mean.”

          And he did. To this all powerful man, a ruler not limited by any laws or constitution, Daniel said: “You’re finished. Not once in your life did you ever worship the only true god. And you have persecuted those who do worship Him. You’re washed up – and your kingdom too. The God of Israel has sent this hand to tell you that you have been weighed on the scales and found wanting.”

          This whole story from the book of Daniel is not history. It is fable – like the fable about the boy George Washington cutting his father’s new cherry tree with the axe which some stupid fool had given him – and then confessing the misdeed to his father, because he couldn’t tell a lie. The fables in Daniel were written to encourage the Jews, exiled and maltreated in Babylon, to remain true to their God and faith. Despite suffering and persecution, the author was telling them: ‘The Lord will protect you. God is not mocked.’

 He is saying the same to us today.  

Monday, November 27, 2017

MIGHTY SIGNS FROM THE SKY


Homily for November 28th, 2017: Luke 21:5-11.

          Again, we have a gospel reading about the “End Time.” This Temple which you are looking at, Jesus tells his hearers, will not always be here. It will all be torn down one day. Shocked, the hearers want to know when this will happen. What sign will there be that the end is coming?

People have been asking that question ever since. Jesus never answered it. As I told you two weeks ago, there is a passage in Matthew’s gospel where Jesus says that even he has no timetable. “As for the exact day or hour, no one knows it, neither the angels in heaven nor the Son, but the Father only” (Mt. 24:36).  

          One piece of information Jesus does give. The end of all things, and Jesus’ return in glory, will be preceded by disturbing signs. Jesus mentions some of them in today’s gospel: “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be powerful earthquakes, famines, and plagues from place to place; and awesome sights and mighty signs will come from the sky.” Jesus is using poetic, dramatic language to describe a world in ferment, and coming apart at the scenes. Who can doubt that we are living in just such a world today?

          Should these signs make us fearful and anxious? Not if we are living for the Lord God, and for others. Let me tell you about a man who did that. His name was Basil Hume, a Benedictine monk of Ampleforth Abbey in the north of England. The 3 English monks who founded St. Louis Abbey and the Priory School on Mason Road came from there 55 years ago. Basil Hume was their Abbot when Pope Paul VI reached over the heads of all the English bishops to make him Archbishop of Westminster and later a cardinal. In June 1999, when he was gravely ill with cancer and knew he was dying, Cardinal Basil wrote these words:

                   “We each have a story, or part of one at any rate, about which we have never been able to speak to anyone. Fear of being misunderstood. Inability to understand. Ignorance of the darker side of our hidden lives, or even shame, make it very difficult for many people. Our true story is not told, or, only half of it is. What a relief it will be to whisper freely and fully into the merciful and compassionate ear of God. That is what God has always wanted. He waits for us to come home. He receives us, his prodigal children, with a loving embrace. In that embrace we start to tell him our story. I now have no fear of death. I look forward to this friend leading me to a world where I shall know God and be known by Him as His beloved son.”

Sunday, November 26, 2017

A WIDOW'S PITTANCE


Homily for November 27th, 2017: Luke 21:1-4.

In a society without today’s social safety net, a widow was destitute. For the widow in today’s gospel to give all that she had to live on for that day was, most people would say, irresponsible, even scandalous. God looks, however, not at the outward action, but at the heart. For God what counts, therefore, is not the size of the gift, but its motive. The wealthy contributors were motivated at least in part by the desire for human recognition and praise. The widow could expect no recognition. Her gift was too insignificant to be noticed. For God, however, no gift is too small provided it is made in the spirit of total self-giving that comes from faith and is nourished by faith.

Jesus recognizes this generosity in the widow. Even the detail that her gift consists of two coins is significant. She could easily have kept one for herself. Prudence would say that she should have done so. She refuses to act out of prudence. She wants to give totally, trusting in God alone. That is why Jesus says that she has given Amore than all the others.@ They calculated how much they could afford to give. In the widow=s case calculation could lead to only one conclusion: she could not afford to give anything. Her poverty excused her from giving at all. She refuses to calculate. She prefers instead to trust in Him for whom Anothing is impossible@ (Luke 1:38)

This poor widow shows us better than long descriptions what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. True discipleship will always seem foolish, even mad, to those who live by worldly wisdom. This poor widow had a wisdom higher than the wisdom of this world: the wisdom of faith. With her small gift she takes her place alongside the other great biblical heroes of faith, from Abraham to Mary, who set their minds first on God=s kingdom, confident that their needs would be provided by Him who (as Jesus reminds us) Aknows that you have need of these things@ (Luke 12:30). This widow is also one of that Ahuge crowd which no one can count@ (Rev. 7:9) whom we celebrated on All Saints= Day B those whose faith inspired them to sacrifice all for Jesus Christ, and who in so doing received from him the Ahundredfold reward@ that he promised (Mark 10:30).

Now, in this hour, Jesus is inviting each one of us to join that happy company: to sacrifice all, that we may receive all. He challenges us to begin today!